Vaccines are safe.

Vaccines are held to the highest standard of safety. The United States
currently has the safest, most effective vaccine supply in history. Years of
testing are required by law before a vaccine can be licensed. Once in use,
vaccines are continually monitored for safety and efficacy.

Each person is unique and may react differently to immunization.

Recommended Related to Children's Vaccines

When pediatrician Robert W. Sears, MD, wrote The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child, he wanted to give parents more choices on how to vaccinate their children if they were concerned about a vaccine’s side effects or ingredients or the large number of shots that kids get.
“A lot of parents don’t really trust the vaccine system,” Sears says. “I felt that if I could give parents a better understanding of vaccines -- as well as an alternative way to approach giving vaccines -- then...

Occasionally, people who receive a vaccine do not respond to it and may
still get the illness the vaccine was meant to protect them against.

In most cases, vaccines are effective and cause no side effects, or only
mild reactions such as fever or soreness at the injection site.

Very rarely, people experience more serious side effects, like allergic
reactions. Be sure to tell your health care provider if you have health
problems or known allergies to medications or food.

Severe reactions to vaccines occur so rarely that the risk is difficult to
calculate.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) continually work to make already safe vaccines even safer.
In the rare event that a child is injured by a vaccine, he or she may be
compensated through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).
For more information about VICP visit http://www.hrsa.gov/osp/vicp/
or call 1-800-338-2382.

Not vaccinating your child? Be aware of the risks.

Immunizations, like any medication, can cause side effects. However, a
decision not to immunize a child also involves risk. It is a decision to put
the child and others who come into contact with him or her at risk of
contracting a disease that could be dangerous or deadly. Consider measles. One
out of 30 children with measles gets pneumonia. For every 1,000 children who
get the disease, one or two will die from it. Thanks to vaccines, we have few
cases of measles in the U.S. today. However, the disease is extremely
contagious and each year dozens of cases are imported from abroad into the
U.S., threatening the health of people who have not been vaccinated and those
for whom the vaccine was not effective. Unvaccinated children are also at risk
from meningitis (swelling of the lining of the brain) caused by Hib (a severe
bacterial infection), bloodstream infections caused by pneumococcus, deafness
caused by mumps, and liver cancer caused by hepatitis B virus.